


Life After Peter

by Applesandbannas747



Category: Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook - Christina Henry
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, lots of kisses, mostly kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 19:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15613365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Applesandbannas747/pseuds/Applesandbannas747
Summary: Jamie has been the notorious Captain Hook for a year, and when being the villain of Peter Pan's stories gets to be too much, Nod is always there to offer comfort.





	Life After Peter

Captain Hook was in a foul mood. Peter Pan and his troop of boys had launched an attack on his crew, which always set his face in a scowl. No casualties today. Peter, try as he might, had yet to find boys skilled enough to kill Jamie or his carefully trained crew. After all, he’d lost all his best fighters—and it had taken many seasons to build those boys up to proper skill. Still, seeing Peter was bad enough, even without deaths to worry about.

“Jamie?” A tentative voice called at his door. “Jamie, you’ll miss dinner.”

“Go without me, little duckling. I’m not hungry.” He was not in the moodto be among his men. They would be loud and jolly from their ’defeat’ of Peter and his boys. But Jamie knew there was no such thing as victory for them. Not really. Not in the long run. Yet Charlie’s voice still set a gentle smile spreading across his face.

“Alright. But Nod won’t be happy, he says you spend too much time moping about in your cabin.” With this warning, Jamie could hear the small boy skip away.

_Not so small as he once was._

Jamie mused briefly over his duckling’s growth in the last year, but his thoughts turned morose soon enough.

“Jamie, I’m coming in.” Yet another familiar voice at his door. This one boomed gruffly and, true to its word, was soon inside his room. Charlie had been right, of course.

“Evening, Nod.” Jamie greeted Nod without looking up. Even had he not recognized the voice, it would have been easy to guess to whom he was speaking. Only two people ever called him  _Jamie_ these days.

“Come eat.” Nod closed the door behind him.

“I’d rather not.”

“Sulking here alone won’t solve anything.”

Jamie felt a twinge of annoyance wash over him at both Nod’s words and his tone. “It will solve as much as anything else will,” he challenged, turning around and meeting Nod’s eyes with venom in his voice.

Nod did not flinch at Jamie’s anger, as he once would have. Jamie knew he’d grown no less fierce since he and Nod were boys. A single glare or harsh word from him could have any one of his men behaving; he had the same hold over them as he’d always had over his boys. But Nod was different. Jamie suspected he knew why.

“I know,” Nod said softly, sitting on the bed next to Jamie. “We’ll have to start weeding out the good ones soon.”

Jamie was almost surprised at Nod’s understanding of both the situation and of Jamie’s own worries.

“The tall one with tawny hair is improving in skill each time there’s a raid.” Jamie said heavily and Nod tipped his head in agreement. Jamie felt his fists clench, red rising in his vision. “He has no right!” Jamie snapped.

“I know.”

“To pull those boys away from their world and teach them to hurt and kill and then not care when they die. He has no right forcing them against experienced fighters like us. No right to make me kill them when they get too good, lest risk loosing one of my own men,” Jamie’s face was distorted in a snarl.

“I know,” Nod said again, impossibly gently. Even through his anger, Jamie knew that he did… Knew that killing boys, boys who were just as they had once been, troubled him as much as it did Jamie.

“And now who will care for them? Peter will not. I can not—not anymore. Who will look after all those poor fools Peter cons into coming here? Who will mourn the boys careless enough to wander near the crocodiles? The boys unable to keep up during a hunt? Those who are sick or hungry or lost? What of the boys who die on my sword? Who will care for them?” His anger was twisted into sadness, tears streaking down his face. His grief was that of the most profound kind, and he knew it would never lessen.

“Jamie,” Nod’s voice was tortured with a similar strand of grief. “I  _know_ ,” he said before enveloping Jamie in his arms. Jamie was startled, unaccustomed to such treatment. A year ago, when Peter had first cursed Jamie and cut off his hand, Nod had held him tight as he cried. And Charlie was as affectionate as ever, though he was now six years old, the small boy would still tangle his hand in Jamie’s new red coat, or cling to his leg, or hold his hand, or climb into his arms. But somehow this felt different from any of that. Nod held him so tight, stroking his long hair and whispering so softly that he knew, that they’d figure it out, that they’d be okay. As Jamie clung to Nod, he could almost believe that they would be.

***

Jamie woke up feeling content. And a little hungry, as he’d missed dinner. A warm weight pressed against his back, and Jamie shifted around in his bed and found that Nod was still holding him.

 _Strange,_  Jamie thought. In all his seasons on the island sleeping among ten or so other boys he’d never woken up so close to anyone. Unless Charlie counted, and Jamie reckoned that he didn’t. Waking up with a five year old snuggled up to you was entirely different than  _this_.

***

Something changed, after that night, though Jamie wasn’t sure if the  _something_  had changed between him and Nod or simply inside himself. Each time that Nod deemed Jamie was ‘sulking’ in his cabin, he would come and insist on being let in. And each time, Jamie would lean into Nod, imploring the man to hold him tightly once again. Nod always obliged, and the next morning Jamie would wake with Nod’s familiar heat pressed against him.

Sometimes Jamie would miss dinner for no other reason than to get Nod to come to him.

On this particular morning, Jamie had woken alone. It had been a week since he’d last indulged himself. He sighed and stretched and finally climbed out of bed. He deftly pulled on his stark white shirt, the dark vest he wore over it, and his long red coat on top. He straightened the cuffs as best he could before securing his metal hook of a hand onto his stump of a wrist. He collected his lengthy black hair back into a tail at the base of his neck, then examined himself in the mirror. It was still a surprise to look into the mirror and see a man staring back at him. But his eyes were as sharp as ever and the familiarity in them could always ground him. He frowned at his reflection anyway.

“I’ll be due for a shave soon,” he murmured to his reflection with dissatisfaction. His facial hair did not grow course and fast, as Nod’s did, for which Jamie was grateful. He didn’t like wearing a beard, preferring to stay clean shaven.

“Are you done admiring yourself, then?” Asked Nod, grinning at the threshold into the room.

“It doesn’t hurt to keep tidy,” Jamie said, though he stepped away from his mirror and beckoned Nod to follow him onto the deck.

“Are you implying I don’t keep clean? Because that hurts, Jamie, I’ve been perfectly hygienic since signing on to your crew,” Nod was smiling easily, the sight giving Jamie hope that, somehow, they’d be okay after all. After Fog’s death, Jamie had wondered if Nod could ever smile freely again.

“You only wash because I’d kick you off my boat if you didn’t,” Jamie said, amused at Nod’s mock-insulted face. Though it was true that Nod had left his boyhood distaste for cleaning behind, just as he had left a good portion of his rowdy nature. He suspected it had to do with losing his twin, and then losing his almost-brother, Crow, and becoming disenchanted with Peter all at the same time. He even kept his blonde beard trimmed neatly close to his face.

“Sure,” said Nod, pulling Jamie from his thoughts. “But your boat is not the only place I’d be booted from if I started to smell. Not the most important one either,” he said this with a wink and mischievous twinkle in his eyes. Jamie laughed, shaking his head at Nod’s goofy grin.

***

“You’ll always be mine,” Peter gloated, hovering just out of reach of Jamie’s red-stained sword.

Jamie didn’t offer a response. It was pointless to argue with the manic child. The only response he gave was a growl as he lunged again for the boy he had once loved with all his being. The body of a tall boy with tawny colored hair lay strewn across the wooden floor of the deck.

“Admit it, Jamie. I am the sun that your world revolves around.”

Jamie’s vision was entirely red. He wanted to hurt Peter, to bludgeon him to death with a rock, to stab him through with his sword or pierce his heart with his dagger. It was no matter that Peter couldn’t die. He wanted to kill him anyway, despite the inevitability that he’d be back and whole again soon. Just as he sailed his ship around his small world, even though he knew that he’d always return here. To Peter.

“You may be the sun, Peter, but you are not what I live for, not what I love. You are far from the most important person in my universe, for all that you may be the center of it.”

“Ah yes, your little duckling.” Peter frowned in distaste thinking of Charlie. Yes, his little duckling was indeed one of the things Jamie treasured above all else. The other, he realized, was Nod. “But even so,” Peter said flippantly, “you are mine. You will  _always_  be mine, Jamie.”

***

As soon as Peter departed, Nod found Jamie and pulled him towards the captain’s quarters.

“Charlie is safe,” were the first words out of his mouth as he closed the door. “And I told the men to take care of the…body.”

Jamie fell against Nod, clinging to him more desperately than he had ever before. Nod stumbled back a step at the force of Jamie’s body slamming into his. Then he held Jamie as tightly as he could, and even pressed a kiss into his hair.

“You had to, Jamie,” Nod said quietly, rubbing circles in his back. “It’s us or them and we can’t afford to let him build up an army.”

Jamie knew, of course, that this was true. He couldn’t sympathize with Peter’s boys, but still it ripped at his soul.

“I killed a child today,” Jamie said, pressing himself still further into Nod. “I’ve killed so many in my time on the island. Men and boys and anyone who got in my way. But Nod, I killed a kid. As a man, as an adult, I ran a child through with my blade. He was only a couple years older than Charlie.”

“And if we’d let him live he could have gotten to be a good enough fighter to kill our men. To kill our Charlie, even. You had to Jamie. You did the right thing.”

And it was so nice to be held, to be comforted, that Jamie let himself nod his head against Nod’s chest. They stood there for a long time in silence, holding each other.

After a long time, Jamie pulled away from Nod, retreating to sit on his bed. Nod looked at him in a curious sort of way, a way that made Jamie shiver.

“Hold me,” Jamie whispered. Nod came to him with no further prompting, enveloping him once again. “Hold me and make me yours.” Nod stiffened against him.

“Jamie?” Nod asked, tentative and unsure.

“Nod.” Once again Jamie pulled back, but not enough to escape Nod’s arms. Only enough to meet his questioning eyes. “Make me yours. Won’t you?”

Nod regarded him another moment, then: “Yes. Yes, of course, Jamie. If you’re sure you want…” His eyes promised things that would once have been unknown to Jamie, when he had been only a boy. But now he knew what those eyes promised. What they wanted.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“But…what about Sally?” Nod didn’t really want to raise this point, Jamie could tell, but he felt he had to.

Jamie thought of Sally. The girl who wanted to grow old with him, the girl whose laugh could summon the sun. His heart ached for her death, and he shook his head, lowering it once again against Nod’s chest. He could feel the other man deflate beneath his cheek.

“I could never,” Jamie’s voice almost broke. “I could never love another woman. I couldn’t do that to her…Sal was…she was special.”

“I know,” Nod said as gently as every other comforting word and action he’d given Jamie.

“But so are you,” Jamie murmured, clutching at Nod’s back, entangling his hand in the fabric there. “I want to be yours, Nod. If you’ll have me.”

In answer, Nod pressed another kiss against his temple, then trailed kisses down his face. Jamie let out a contented sigh and let his body fall back against his mattress. Slowly and carefully, Nod started undressing him, pausing often to run a hand or press a string of kisses over the exposed skin.

“Jamie,” Nod would say in a reverent whisper. “Jamie, Jamie,  _Jamie.”_ And never had Jamie loved hearing his name more.

“Yes,” he’d answer again and again and he’d hold Nod closer still, though this hindered the process of undressing.

“Can I?” Nod asked, tentative, fingering the skin just before flesh became metal. Jamie almost felt self conscious of his stump, aware of the ugly scarring there and the strange emptiness of a limb not ending in hand or foot. Almost he worried the gnarled skin covering severed bone would make him undesirable.

“Yes,” he said, allowing Nod to free his stump of the hook for which he was named. Nod kissed the ruined skin here, too, then properly pulled off the red coat, the dark vest, and the white shirt. He kissed every scar across Jamie’s torso, no matter how small or gnarly, no matter how fresh or old.

Upon pulling his trousers off, Nod’s lips found the twice wounded gash across his inner thigh. Nod kissed him so gently, so impossibly gently, that Jamie felt light headed and intoxicated. Nod proceeded with the most gentle of care and for every moment Jamie felt as though he were truly treasured.  _Loved._

_***_

Jamie slept well, as he always did when Nod stayed in his bed. He felt the rub of stubble against his bare shoulder as Nod kissed a scar on his left shoulder blade.

“Morning,” Jamie yawned, turning to face Nod.

“Hi,” Nod smiled. “You good?”

Jamie hummed contentedly as an answer and pondered the benefits of falling back into sleep. But, no, he was the captain. He had to get up.  _Soon_ , he decided. He let himself bask in the easy feeling hanging between himself and Nod, in the comfort of the bed beneath him and the arms around him. But then it really was time to wake. He sat up reluctantly, detaching himself from Nod, who groaned at his absence.

“It’s still early, Jamie,” Nod complained. “Can’t you stay a little longer?”

Jamie felt an odd tug at his heart spurred by the words. He looked at Nod, startled to realize—to acknowledge—what a hold this man had on him. Staring down at Nod, he wanted very much to do just as he’d been asked. To stay, just a moment a longer… “No,” Jamie said softly, brushing his fingertips along Nod’s forehead, sweeping his blonde hair away from his eyes. “But you should. Stay. In my cabin.”

“Jamie?” Nod looked confused; he was able to tell that Jamie meant something more than his words let on, but obviously couldn’t figure out just  _what_  exactly Jamie was asking.

“You spend half your nights here anyway. Move from the bunks. Stay  _here_. With me. For always.”

“Alright, Jamie,” Nod sat up, smiling. “I will.”

***

“It’s not fair!” Charlie’s lip was wobbling, a sure sign of trouble. Jamie closed the door to his rooms which Charlie had just burst through.

“Hush now, Charlie, it’s time for bed.”

“I know!” Charlie glared at him fiercely. “But it’s not fair that Nod gets to sleep with you,” he protested.

“Charlie, you’re a big boy now, you don’t need to sleep in here anymore.” Jamie had kept the small feather haired boy with him day and night for the first several months of their piracy. But in the end, he knew it was important for Charlie to learn to find his own place, which he couldn’t do if Jamie babied him forever. Still, it had been nerve wrecking for him to let Charlie move into the bunks with the rest of the men.

“Nod’s even bigger than me!” Charlie shouted. “So why does he get to sleep here? Is it because…” his eyes were welling up with tears now. “Do you love Nod better than me?”

“Charlie,” Jamie sighed, kneeling down and opening his arms for the crying boy. “Of course not. I only love him in a different way than I love you. Do you understand?”

Charlie shook his head against Jamie’s chest, though he seemed placated, for his sobs had subsided a good deal.

“No, you wouldn’t. You’re just a boy. It’s a grown up thing, Charlie.”

Just then, the door opened once more and Nod strolled in.

“What’s this, then?” Nod asked, amused.

“You’re hogging Jamie all to yourself and it’s not fair,” Charlie unburied his face from Jamie’s chest to shoot a glare at Nod. Jamie huffed. For all that Charlie and Nod got along and cared for each other, he seemed to be a constant tension in their relationship.

“Hogging?” Asked Nod. This happened sometimes. Often, really. Charlie would use words in contexts unfamiliar to Nod or Jamie. They had all come from different times in the Other Place, and each new batch of boys had always brought a new wave of language.

“Yeah, hogging,” Charlie sniffed defiantly. “You’re keeping him all to yourself and not sharing. Like how you get to sleep with Jamie even though you’re too big to need to.” Charlie’s pout was back in place, but Nod let out a bellowing laugh at this.

“Yes, that is unfair, isn’t it?” Nod knelt down next to Jamie and Charlie, ruffling the boy’s hair as he nodded vigorously. “Maybe you could stay with us sometimes. What do you say Jamie?” Between Nod’s smile and Charlie’s eager, hopeful face, Jamie’s resolve didn’t last long.

“One night a week,” he said. “You can sleep in here one of seven days.” Charlie beamed, bobbing his little head up and down enthusiastically.

“There, now,” Nod said. “Problem solved.”

“Yes,” agreed Jamie. “Problem solved. Can we go to bed, then, Charlie?”

“I’m sleeping here tonight,” Charlie looked as if he’d just won a great victory.

“I somehow knew you’d be staying,” Jamie stood, allowing Charlie to slide from his lap.

***

“You won’t fit,” Jamie said flatly, recognizing the look in Charlie’s eyes. They’d made up a a bed on the floor for him, but then, after putting out the lantern, Nod had climbed into bed with Jamie. Now Charlie stood at the foot of the bed, incredulous.

“You said you loved me better! So why does he get to sleep on your bed but not me?”

“I said I loved you different. Now, go to sleep before I send you back to the bunks.”

“I won’t!” And he crawled onto the bed, nestling into the space between Jamie and Nod. Then, after a long pause which Jamie had interpreted as the end of this discussion, Charlie asked: “Why do you love us different?”

Jamie opened his mouth to answer, but couldn’t think of a way to explain. He didn’t have to.

“Jamie loves you like a mama loves her babe,” Nod said with absolute conviction. “And he loves me like a mama loves a father. See? It’s different, but he doesn’t love me better than you, little duckling.”

“Oh,” said Charlie, and he seemed to accept—even like—this explanation. He yawned wide and burrowed deeper into the blankets. “If Jamie’s my mama and he loves you, does that make you my father?” He asked, voice already heavy with sleep. Nod cocked his head, surprised. Jamie almost let out a strangled noise of surprise himself.

Then: “Yes. It does.” Nod said, sincere and sure.

“Oh,” Charlie said again, then drifted off to sleep with a smile ghosting on his face.

“You’re a father now?” Asked Jamie, half amused and half…something else. Something good.

“Sure,” Nod shifted slightly, closing the distance between their faces, then kissed Jamie’s forehead with care. Charlie stirred between them and Nod fell back on to his own pillow, though his arm came up to rest across Charlie’s body, his hand just reaching Jamie’s own hand.  _We really don’t fit_ , Jamie mused, tangling his fingers with Nod’s and falling asleep with no worries on his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Ya'll I'm just really melancholy about this book??? Like it was so good and im an emotional prune????? I just want them all to be as happy as they can be okay...I might add to this because I have more scenes/ideas about Jamie/Nod floating around in my head but lol who knows!


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